Fernandes: Small teams can't compete

Former Caterham owner Tony Fernandes says that small teams will be unable to compete in Formula 1 unless the sport reduces its spending across the grid.

Neither Caterham nor fellow backmarkers Marussia will be present at this weekend's United States Grand Prix after both outfits called in the administrators due to worsening financial problems.

Fernandes believes that the situation will continue until the sport resolves its current problems, citing his other business ventures - QPR football club and Air Asia - as examples.

"People can blame whoever, but the big teams are as much at fault as anyone," he said.

"The gap has become way too big and it’s money. And so I thought, ‘Well, I can’t compete'. But I can compete at QPR; I can compete at Air Asia.

"Rather than continue something where I thought, one, I wasn’t able to give it as much time as possible, two, I thought we were on a beating to none anyway, you’ve got to be brave and say ‘Look, we screwed up. You can’t compete; you thought you could and time to leave.'

"The sport has to examine itself as well. Ultimately we couldn’t carry on and we would have eventually gone into administration anyway or closed down the team."